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To the surprise of all, the wife of the prophet, whose name is lost to time, offered to hold the sacrificial bowl. When the prophet’s enemies tied him to the table and cut him open, she was ready with the vessel, acting as a handmaiden to catch the blood as it drained from her husband. To the amazement of all, he was silent as his executioners continued to slice him, making certain the blood would flow until none remained.
From this stream of blood, she filled the cup of his tormentors, who sipped of his life essence as they watched him vivisected. It was only then that the prophet cried, for he could see that his wife had poisoned each man’s cup, and he wept for her, knowing she had lost all compassion.
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Happy to move into action, I gestured at Lanzo to take up the rear. I didn’t know what I was going to say to the Idiots. I decided to keep it short, so moved the pipe blocking the door and stepped through.
The Idiots were all happy to see me again, or at least happy that I might be leaving, until they spotted Nika. I jumped in front of that with, “Change of plans. I’m taking her to Sartre. He thinks they might know about this place. We need to move her.” I stared down at Max, feeling the intimidation I was putting out bounce off his amphetamine shell.
Max’s eyes jumped from me to Sophie to Nika, then back again, quicker than a hummingbird. “That is not the plan. Sartre said he was coming himself.”
“Neither was you talking to Sartre,” I almost said, but replied, “I know. He sent me.”
“What is this bullshit?” Max went from rational to spitting angry faster than the speed he was on. He grabbed me by the elbow, his grip like a snakebite. “Lanzo, you cannot trust this American.”
I took quick stock of the situation. The three Idiots in the contained space, Sophie with her Opinel knife, me moving slower than usual, no visible weapons on the Idiots. I didn’t have any doubt we could take them, but murdering Lanzo’s friends wasn’t what we needed. If Nika saw what Sophie was capable of she’d scream out into the night.
I was saved from this by the appearance of the revolver floating up into my peripheral vision. Resting it on my shoulder, Sophie braced the tarnished steel of the pistol there as if I were a bipod, leveling its weight at the Idiots. Despite my surprise I kept my eyes on them. Having had the revolver pointed at me, I could attest to its intimidation.
Sophie commanded, “Open the door.”
Max released my arm while protesting to Lanzo. He stood back and Sophie gestured for him to open the door. Sophie lifted the revolver off my shoulder so I could follow him.
Light spilled out from the hutch onto the shadowed path up to the road. I pushed the Idiots together so Sophie could cover all three as I gestured Nika and Lanzo out. Lanzo looked like he might want to say something, but the pistol had introduced a pressure into the situation that squeezed him in to action as it held his friends in place. He followed Nika out. I held the door for Sophie. She backed up, holding the pistol on the Idiots as she moved.
“Don’t follow us,” I said before I closed the door. It was only fair to give them an honest piece of advice before it was over. Even so, I thought I could detect a faint smile on Max.
As we climbed, I saw why. The edge of the riverbank glowed like the top of a lighthouse. I scooted to the front of the group on the narrow path when I saw it.
With nowhere to retreat to, I stopped everyone and gestured for them to wait. I crouched up the remaining yards of the path until I could see the headlights from the road pointed at the gorge. There were three cars there, black as any of Sartre’s rooks, purring quietly with the xenon lights nearly blinding me. I stepped out from the gorge, holding a hand up to shield my eyes.
I couldn’t see everyone, but I did some quick math – three cars meant Sartre was traveling with his usual entourage, so there were at least six I couldn’t see. I smiled as I thought about how any one of them could gun me down right then.
Sartre stormed out of the darkness. His hostile scrutiny shone brighter than the headlights his fireplug frame partially blocked. I said his name, loudly, so Sophie might here, and nothing else.
“American! Why are you here?”
While my brain scrambled over possible exits, I replied with a redacted version of the truth. “I’m here checking Nika. You?”
Sartre squeezed an eye shut and stared at me with the other, a jeweler eyeing every facet of a bad gem. “We are here for the girl.”
“She’s safe,” I answered. When he didn’t move, I stepped closed to him, lowering my voice. “You’re not supposed to be here. Do you want Mitnick to know you’re involved?”
Whatever his motives, a sliver of Sartre’s anger cut through like the shards of light around him. “The Russians are tearing the city apart. Searching for the girl.” In the fire of Sartre’s eyes I could see the violence ripping through his town, hitting his corners, terrorizing his cathouses, bombing his bookies. It all lay in contradiction to his next words of, “We will move her.”
“Then why the gun?”
Sartre glanced at the Tokarev in his hand as if he had forgotten it was there. His new plan became clear with his next words. “There will be consequences.”
He tried to step past me and I imposed myself between him and the river. He had no need to hide his anger in day-to-day life and so here, between the river and the city, he wasn’t any better at it. “You aren’t taking her,” I replied.
The long shadow we created between the headlights and the drop into the gorge stretched to the downward path. Sartre only hardened as he contemplated my usefulness versus my obstinance. “Get out of the way, American.”
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At the zoo, there are two sisters, separated by a few years, but with a vast chasm between them. The oldest is beautiful, but her eyes exude a knowledge of this beauty and its value to others, emptying her of all things but to be pretty.
You can see the younger growing into the same beauty, but she is not yet stripped of her personality by being the object for others. This awakens in you an instinct to protect the younger one, to allow her to grow into the woman she will become without the corrosive effects that her blossoming comeliness have wrought on her sister. But they are both strangers to you.
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I fluttered of my eyelids to the appearance of the tenement’s water-spotted ceiling. Cheryl stood not far from the bed I lay in, smiling from the doorway. Without getting any closer, she laid a gentle, warm hand on my face and said, “It’s OK. It’s almost over.”
The figure that I thought was a dead woman elongated and her hair lightened until I realized it was Sophie who stood there, smiling at my return to consciousness. I blinked myself awake before I realized where I was, then shot out of bed.
“How long have I been out?”
“Since I brought you home.” I hadn’t been conscious enough at Simon’s to see the expensive European car pull out from the curve to follow Alon’s taxi, but I know now it was there.
I got on the apartment’s landline and dialed Lanzo’s mobile, but it went to an anonymized voicemail, so I hung up. If his phone wasn’t connecting, there was one place he’d be.
“We need to get Nika and Lanzo out.” I explained as I slowly moved my damaged form into new clothes. “Mitnick was asking about Lanzo.”
Sophie stared holes in me as she considered what I said. Then the ceiling got its own meditation. When whatever cosmic entities she consulted there signaled her back, she nodded to me and set about getting ready.
I eventually got into the trench coat, the blood on the lapels dried to brown dots. By the time I was ready, Sophie was by the exit, dressed in Sézane jeans and second-hand cardigan, ready to go. I gave her the broken revolver, which she stuffed into the pocket of her over-sized bomber jacket. It didn’t look like rain, but I brought the umbrella.
We took the elevator down and I pushed us through the small crowd of bored tenets that had come to roost on the block’s stoop like so many night birds. None of them glanced at us. Sirens followed us out into the night.
We caught a taxi. Sophie intimidated the driver into no chatter with her sunglasses at night, I missed Alon and his nose pushing out from his coat. Or maybe I missed Simon, knowing going to see him ever again would only endanger him. My punch-drunk brain was running out of room and pushed the two Frenchmen into the same corner. That was OK – I’m sure they’d get along.
We asked to be dropped far from the river and spent a lot of time making sure we weren’t followed, doubling back and taking unnecessary turns. For all the good it did us.
When we got to the edge of the gorge, looking over the bollards at the deep descent to the hutch, I felt a lot of ghosts gathering. As we descended, Cheryl and Sergio and Mikhail floated all around.
The hutch’s door squealed as I opened it, causing all three of the Idiots to stand quickly. I’m glad none of them had a gun – whatever amphetamines they had been ingesting to stay on the clock hadn’t been doing their nerves any favors. I pushed into the room.
As confused as I felt, Max asked, “Where is Sartre?”
The question only registered as I reached the rear door of the hutch. I pulled on it, but it wouldn’t budge. “He’s blocked it from the other side,” Max answered. “I guess they are having private time.”
I banged on the door. There were noises on the other side and the door cracked open. Through the opening, Lanzo’s hostile eye stared out. After adjusting to the hutch’s yellow light, recognition came into it and relief beamed in the darkness. Lanzo opened the door wider and we stepped through.
When Max tried to follow, Lanzo stopped him with the door. There was a hushed exchanged in their shared language that ended with a half-hearted attempt by Max to force his way in. Lanzo held the door, though, saying something final and sharp before pulling it shut. With some admiration for the vexing it must be causing the Idiots, I watched Lanzo prop a pipe against the doorknob.
Nika was on the bed, eyes wide. Sophie strode to her with the most radiant smile, arms spread wide as if she were about to give a favorite niece the best of hugs. Seeing this, Nika’s slipped off the bed to greet the other woman. They had an exchange in bullet-fast French.
This lasted until I caught Sophie say, “Your father is coming.” Nika’s expression fell at these words and she shook her head, trying to deny the future. Sophie nodded and guided both of them to sitting. Once done, she gestured me and Lanzo closer.
I stepped forward and added, “Mitnick doesn’t know where you are, but he’s searching for you and Lanzo.” I short-handed the rest with, “You need to go.”
Fear swirled on Nika’s face; the fear of her father, of whatever returning home entailed, the fear of striking out into the unknown, what might become of Lanzo if they were caught. All of it was there as plain on her face as water doing down a drain.
Sophie knew the fear of that struggle better than anyone else. She grasped Nika’s hands in her own and held them gently. Nika said nothing. Lanzo opened his mouth, but I placed a hand on his shoulder. When he glanced at me, I silently shook my head.
If nothing else the Marine Corps is very good at teaching you how to wait around while other people make decisions. I breathed slow and calm and kept my eyes on Lanzo so he wouldn’t try to push anything.
To my surprise it was Sophie who launched things, standing up from the bed. With a woman’s practicality she said, “If you wish to go, we must go now.”
Nika stared up at Sophie as if she could divine something from her stature. After a moment, though, she took Sophie’s hand. Sophie pulled her up as she stood from the bed. “Let us go.”
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Sister Nancy had always had her doubt, harbored deep in the armor of her faith. It hid her uncertainty as well, hid it from everyone, but she knew it was there, and she tried to contain it so it did not grow large enough to crack the carapace of her belief.
She had always suspected that evil was not just in the hearts of men, but a tangible thing, commanded by Satan. Minions invisible to mortal men were sent to torment and tempt, until they brought them to a fall.
Sister Nancy, though, never saw those minions. She only saw the parade of man’s inhumanity to man, no matter where she went or who she helped or how. And with each misdeed she witnessed, her doubt grew greater.
Later, when she finally met Lucifer, she asked, “Where were you all this time?”
“Oh, dear sister,” he replied with a mercy so profound she could see the angel he had once been. “I don’t do personal appearances. The wise too often take them as what they are – confirmation of God.”
